Many people, including scientists, have argued that all life is somehow interconnected. While some write off these ideas as "fluff" and "unscientific," there is accumulating evidence from detailed scientific studies that many animals know many things that we don't and are communicating in ways that we don't understand. These are among the reasons that I was attracted to a book titled The Internet of Animals: Discovering the Collective Intelligence of Life on Earth by Dr. Martin Wikelski, founder of the International Cooperation for Animal Research Using Space (ICARUS) program, in which he describes animals’ sixth sense first-hand.
As researchers tag animals around the world with minuscule tracking devices, they link their movements to The International Space Station, now even a new micro-satellite constellation, which taps into the "internet of animals": an astonishing network of information made up of thousands of animals communicating with each other and their environments. Wikelski writes about how farm animals become restless when earthquakes are imminent, how animals on the African plains sense when poachers are on the move, how frigatebirds in South America depart before hurricanes arrive, and other amazing examples of interconnectedness among diverse animals.
Wikelski himself is deeply involved in this research, and when he responded to me with answers to the questions I........